


the evil that men do lives after them

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Category: Sharp Zero (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, much plotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21623593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: If the control had really transformed Blueshift into Sharp Zero, then Caesar would have to do something else to eradicate him.
Kudos: 5





	the evil that men do lives after them

**Author's Note:**

> title from julius caesar because haha jokes

After Crank and Dispatch had related all they knew about Sharp Zero, Caesar had dismissed them and settled in to think. 

The vials he had had planted in Blueshift's office shouldn't have created a super. The control, which was probably what this super was calling 'zero', had been his only proven substance to eradicate a super in an efficient way— get enough of the substance onto a super's skin, and they would seem to go through anaphylactic shock that no amount of adrenaline could reverse. 

Maybe not enough had come into direct contact with Blueshift?

That was, after all, the problem with the control. It worked, but only in high doses, and the amount required was proportional to body mass. If Trial One had leaked instead... but there hadn't been any time. He had just had to set up the timer with the knowledge that if any vial leaked, it would hopefully be enough to take out Blueshift.

As a scientist, it would have been  _ ideal _ for Trial Two to leak. He had had a few opportunities to test Trial One on supers— it was so convenient when they refused to register themselves and made it harder for law enforcement to track them down— but Trial Two was the newest and the most delicate. Trial One could kill in half the dosage of the control, but Trial Two introduced a new type of death: removing the powers and leaving the human alive. 

From what he knew about supers, that would be infinitely more painful.

Crank and Dispatch had described someone short and dark-haired, wearing a blue hoodie and a surgeon's mask and seemingly nothing else, hanging around with Redshift. The person's arms had turned into giant, monstrous arms with claws attached, their eyes had turned red, and they had grown fangs.

Someone wearing a blue hoodie hanging around with Redshift at Alexitech certainly seemed like Blueshift, and the rest of their description sounded like a Blueshift who had gone through  _ massive _ changes. That shouldn't have been the case if Sharp Zero was truly the only substance that touched Blueshift directly.

Maybe it wasn't enough? He was quite tall, or at least he was before the leak. Or maybe more than one vial had leaked. That would not be ideal for testing conditions, but then, the situation with Blueshift wasn't really a scientific one anyway.

He would have to have someone track down Sharp Zero and determine for sure what had happened to Blueshift when the substances had touched him. Bad enough to have transformed his powers from one form into another; if the change had turned Blueshift into a ready and willing fighter, then Caesar had other problems on his hands. He could only replace Crank's mask so many times before it got irritating.

He would have to gather more supers and test the substances more thoroughly. This kind of mistake could not happen again.

Hmm. In the last report he had received from his reconnaissance team, it had mentioned a pair of identical twins, adults, living together, with powers that were latent but beginning to wake— just enough to be spotted by the supers on his team. They would be an ideal place to start. Pity they weren't triplets; then he could do a proper experiment.

Caesar pressed the button on his desk that indicated that it was time for his retrieval team to come receive their instructions. They were nowhere near as flashy as Crank and Dispatch; unlike those two, their job was to get what Caesar needed and bring it back without drawing any attention. Crank and Dispatch, meanwhile, engaged in petty crime just enough to distract the Vindicators, wrestled with them for a bit, then vanished as soon as the retrieval team was finished with their task.

Having Crank and Dispatch on the retrieval team would be a disadvantage in this case, anyway. Caesar knew that their civilian selves were friends with this particular pair of twins.

Well, it wasn't like they would have any idea what had happened to them.


End file.
